As the weather was fair, and the wind due north and steady, though little of it, my Rais said that we had better stretch over to Azab, than run along the coast in the direction we were now going, because, somewhere between Hodeida and Cape Nummel, there was foul ground, with which he should not like to engage in the night. Nothing could be more agreeable to me. For, though I knew the people of Azab were not to be trusted, yet there were two things I thought I might accomplish, by being on my guard. The one was, to learn what those ruins were that I had heard so much spoken of in Egypt and at Jidda, and which are supposed to have been works of the Queen of Sheba, whose country this was. The other was, to obtain the myrrh and frankincense-tree, which grow upon that coast only, but neither of which had as yet been described by any author.
At four o’clock we passed a dangerous shoal, which is the one I suppose our Rais was afraid of. If so, he could not have adopted a worse measure, than by stretching over from Cape Israel to Azab in the night; for, had the wind come westerly, as it soon after did, we should have probably been on the bank; as it was, we passed it something less than a mile, the wind was north, and we were going at a great rate. At sun-set we saw Jibbel Zekir, with three small islands, on the north side of it. At twelve at night the wind failing, we found ourselves about a league from the west end of Jibbel Zekir, but it then began to blow fresh from the west; so that the Rais begged liberty to abandon the voyage to Azab, and to keep our first intended one to Mocha. For my part, I had no desire at all to land at Mocha. Mr Niebuhr had already been there before us; and I was sure every useful observation had been made as to the country, for he had staid there a very considerable time, and was ill used. We kept our course, however, upon Mocha town.
The 29th, about two o’clock in the morning, we passed six islands, called Jibbel el Ourèe; and having but indifferent wind, we anchored about nine off the point of the shoal, which lies immediately east of the north fort of Mocha.
The town of Mocha makes an agreeable appearance from the sea. Behind it there is a grove of palm-trees, that do not seem to have the beauty of those in Egypt, probably owing to their being exposed to the violent south-westers that blow here, and make it very uneasy riding for vessels; there is, however, very seldom any damage done. The port is formed by two points of land, which make a semi-circle. Upon each of the points is a small fort; the town is in the middle, and if attacked by an enemy, these two forts are so detached that they might be made of more use to annoy the town, than they could ever be to defend the harbour. The ground for anchorage is of the very best kind, sand without coral, which last chafes the cables all over the Red Sea.
On the 30th, at seven o’clock in the morning, with a gentle but steady wind at west, we sailed for the mouth of the Indian Ocean. Our Rais became more lively and bolder as he approached his own coast, and offered to carry me for nothing, if I would go home with him to Sheher, but I had already enough upon my hand. It is, however, a voyage some man of knowledge and enterprise should attempt, as the country and the manners of the people are very little known. But this far is certain, that there all the precious gums grow; all the drugs of the galenical school, the frankincense, myrrh, benjoin, dragons-blood, and a multitude of others, the natural history of which no one has yet given us.
The coast of Arabia, all along from Mocha to the Straits, is a bold coast, close to which you may run without danger night or day. We continued our course within a mile of the shore, where in some places there appeared to be small woods, in others a flat bare country, bounded with mountains at a considerable distance. Our wind freshened as we advanced. About four in the afternoon we saw the mountain which forms one of the Capes of the Straits of Babelmandeb, in shape resembling a gunner’s quoin. About six o’clock, for what reason I did not know, our Rais insisted upon anchoring for the night behind a small point. I thought, at first, it had been for pilots.
The 31st, at nine in the morning, we came to an anchor above Jibbel Raban, or Pilots Island, just under the Cape which, on the Arabian side, forms the north entrance of the Straits. We now saw a small vessel enter a round harbour, divided from us by the Cape. The Rais said he had a design to have anchored there last night; but as it was troublesome to get out in the morning by the westerly wind, he intended to run over to Perim island to pass the night, and give us an opportunity to make what observations we pleased in quiet.
We caught here a prodigious quantity of the finest fish that I had ever before seen, but the silly Rais greatly troubled our enjoyment, by telling us, that many of the fish in that part were poisonous. Several of our people took the alarm, and abstained; the rule I made use of in choosing mine, was to take all those that were likest the fish of our own northern seas, nor had I ever any reason to complain.
At noon, I made an observation of the sun, just under the Cape of the Arabian shore, with a Hadley’s quadrant, and found it to be in lat. 12° 38´ 30´´, but by many passages of the stars, observed by my large astronomical quadrant in the island of Perim, all deductions made, I found the true latitude of the Cape should be rather 12° 39´ 20´´ north.
Perim is a low island, its harbour good, fronting the Abyssinian shore. It is a barren, bare rock, producing, on some parts of it, plants of absynthium, or rue, in others kelp, that did not seem to thrive; it was at this time perfectly scorched by the heat of the sun, and had only a very faint appearance of having ever vegetated. The island itself is about five miles in length, perhaps more, and about two miles in breadth. It becomes narrower at both ends. Ever since we anchored at the Cape, it had begun to blow strongly from the west, which gave our Rais great apprehension, as, he said, the wind sometimes continued in that point for fifteen days together. This alarmed me not a little, least, by missing Mahomet Gibberti, we should lose our voyage. We had rice and butter, honey and flour. The sea afforded us plenty of fish, and I had no doubt but hunger would get the better of our fears of being poisoned: with water we were likewise pretty well supplied, but all this was rendered useless by our being deprived of fire. In short, though we could have killed twenty turtles a-day, all we could get to make fire of, were the rotten dry roots of the rue that we pulled from the clefts of the rock, which, with much ado, served to make fire for boiling our coffee.